The Stars Rained Down Like Embers
by AutobotKuro
Summary: [AU] For as long as anyone can remember, his people have worshipped the stars, praying to their patron deities for rain and good harvest, for protection and strength. But as the invasion of his homeland rages on into its third year, Grimmjow is losing faith in Ichigo, the star his people call the protector. He soon learns that he is not as alone as he thinks. Grimmjow/Ichigo
1. Once They Walked Among Us

**Author's Note: **I don't know. This AU is a little out there. It's inspired by a work of fiction (or historical mythology?) I stumbled upon a long time ago, which described the stars as gods.

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**The Stars Rained Down Like Embers**

**Chapter I: Once They Walked Among Us**

...

When Grimmjow looks at the night sky, his gaze falls without effort to the constellation highest above the western horizon. His father had taught him many years ago where to look for Zangetsu the protector, the cluster of stars that take the form of a great sword, but even if he had not, Zangetsu was among the easiest to spot on a clear, dark night.

Even the smallest child in their village knew the protector. Perhaps they might not know the winter dragon, or the baboon and snake, or any of the other lesser constellations that dotted the sky, but everyone knew the protector.

When Grimmjow was four, his mother showed him how to pray to their gods. Senbonzakura brought the first bloom of spring, and Hyorimaru turned the morning dew to frost and breathed his fury into the snowstorms of their winters. But these, and many other constellations, waxed and waned with the seasons.

Zangetsu did not. The protector was omnipresent in their night sky, never faltering, never wandering, and this, his mother said, was why their people prayed the most to Ichigo, the brightest star in Zangetsu.

And so Grimmjow too prayed, alongside his mother and father when the need arose. They prayed for safe travel, when his father was called to duty to the neighboring villages that lined the coast. They prayed for protection, against the vicious wind storms that often battered their lands, against the marauding nomads who roamed the hills beyond their borders and the wild beasts who raided their pastures.

Zangetsu, and _Ichigo_ in particular, protected them all from these hardships and many more.

Ichigo was a difficult star to mistake for any other, for he shone like the color of blood an hour old, a darker, more somber red than the brightest star in Zabimaru, the baboon and snake. Ichigo took his place at the hilt of Zangetsu, like a king on his throne before the smaller, lesser stars in his constellation, guiding the blade to its purpose.

Grimmjow had spent many an idle night gazing upon him and all the others, his young mind filled with wonderment and imaginings of what their gods might look like, had they not taken their place above the mortal world as stars only to be seen at night. He wondered why the vast majority of stars were white, while Ichigo was a deep, ominous red, and why, if Zangetsu was the protector, did it not take the form of a shield rather than a sword?

His mother and father listened to these questions patiently, and though they did not know the answers to all of them, there were some that others before him had wondered also, and for which stories had been told to answer.

Long ago, in an era when the night had been without light and the moon shared the sky with no other, the gods had lived amongst their worshippers and so the people had known what their stars looked like.

Toshiro, the winter dragon, appeared as a child, but with hair as white as an old man's. Kenpachi, the only star who stood alone without a constellation of his own, was a man of great height and fearsome presence. Byakuya was proud and Jushiro was kind, and Ichigo…

Ichigo was strong. Some stories said he was frightening to behold, bearing the white face of a demon with great horns and insatiable bloodlust. But others described him quite differently, as a man with kind eyes and peculiar orange hair.

As a child, Grimmjow had preferred the Ichigo of gentler description. When he prayed alone, for safety from the monsters that haunted the steps of any overly imaginative child, it was to the Ichigo who was noble, self-sacrificing, and gentle. Perhaps Ichigo appeared as a skull-faced beast to those who threatened Grimmjow and his people, but to those he loved, Grimmjow thought, he must be kind.

Grimmjow prayed often, more than most children did, and perhaps even more than most adults. He prayed because he was a child unusually taken by fears, both real and imagined, and as the son of their tribe's greatest warrior, it would be unbecoming to be seen jumping at shadows.

He prayed also for his father, who was frequently absent for he had duties to attend to in the assurance of their tribe's safety. There were many other villages that dotted the coastline, and more still further inland, and his father travelled often to these places to convene with their leaders and negotiate shared defenses of their collective nation.

Grimmjow knew that there were other nations beyond their western borders, and while some cared only in trading for the fine silks and other goods produced in their land, others were not so friendly, eyeing their fertile soils and good seasons with envy and wishing to take their land for their own.

The summer after his tenth year, Grimmjow grew tall enough to seat himself upon his father's horse, and was deemed ready to begin his warrior training. While every boy in his tribe undertook such training at some point, Grimmjow began earlier than most, a fact that caused him to puff his chest with adolescent pride when he passed the other village boys on his daily walk to the training fields.

He was fiercer than most, his father told him, the day he presented Grimmjow with his first practice sword, a nameless blade with blunted edges and a plain, blue-wrapped hilt. And as Grimmjow swung the mock weapon about in excited, still-childish glee, his father remarked that he was fearless too.

Back turned, Grimmjow smiled then, for his father did not know that this was far from true. He was fearless because Ichigo kept the sharks at bay when Grimmjow swam far from the coast and Ichigo ensured his father's safe return from every trip abroad. If Grimmjow was fearless, it was because Ichigo gave him no reason to fear.

Grimmjow trained with the older boys of his village, but his days were not over until his father was finished training him alone at home too. At night, he would lay upon a hammock slung between two trees, nursing the day's scrapes and bumps, and gaze upwards towards the skies.

As his mother had told him long ago, the dark red star in Zangetsu's hilt never faltered or waned. Even when there were clouds, Grimmjow was content to know that Ichigo was still there, perhaps hidden from sight but ever present and vigilant.

He would whisper a quiet prayer, thank the star for his protection, and fall asleep under its watchful gaze.

...

When Grimmjow was seventeen, his father began leaving home for longer periods of time.

Grimmjow was no longer a child, and in the last year he had sprouted like a weed into a gangly youth with too-big hands and feet and long legs that suddenly had him looking over the heads of many of his peers. He would overtake his father's height in the next year or two, but his new frame would take several more years to fill out.

Tall warriors, his father said, had to work harder to fill their height with muscle.

And Grimmjow did. When other boys ached and complained of exhaustion, Grimmjow did not stop until he could no longer rise. His training never ended until he was well and truly beaten into the ground. He challenged anyone he could, peers and senior students and teachers alike, until finally one day he broke the arm of another boy in a sparring match and from then on his age-mates began to shun his challenges.

Grimmjow was insatiable, his teachers said. He took to fighting like a bird to open skies, swung his mock weapon around as though the motions of swordplay were more natural than breathing. He revelled in the art of war like one gone mad. Some of the elder teachers spoke disapprovingly of this, whispering amongst themselves that the boy's heart was touched by Kenpachi, the lone star who lusted for blood, and this was a speculation of damnation, not reverence.

But Grimmjow's father always looked upon his son with grim approval, and on the night before the boy's ninteenth birthday, Grimmjow received a true blade of his very own, which whispered to him and told him its name.

_Pantera_, it said, and Grimmjow understood.

Pantera was worn proudly on Grimmjow's hip, and from that day forth, he began accompanying his father on his long journeys to their brother tribes. His training continued, but under his father's tutelage now instead of the teachers who shook their heads when he smiled after drawing blood. Every night after a full day of travel, they would set up camp and find an open field to practice in.

Although years of training with a practice sword had made Grimmjow accustomed to the weight and feel of a sword, Pantera was sharp, and mistakes were more painful now. Instead of bruises and scrapes, Grimmjow would nurse deeper wounds after training now, but a prayer to Ichigo before sleep every night meant that his wounds healed quickly and without festering. Though his travels took him to strange lands and unfamiliar terrains, Ichigo never changed from his position in the night sky, and so Grimmjow never felt homesick.

It was during these travels that he learned of the encroaching threat from the west. Unrest in the nations beyond their borders had been brewing since Grimmjow was small but only now beginning to threaten their lands. The people to the west were no longer content with the land they had been alotted, and now looked to the lands of other nations with envy-green eyes. The tribes of Grimmjow's people watched their borders with suspicion, hoping for the conflict to die out before reaching their lands but preparing for war if it did not.

This, Grimmjow realized, was the reason for his father's frequent absences as of late. This was why his father watched him train with such grim satisfaction, why he did not rebuke Grimmjow for his savagery in fighting, and why he was bringing the boy to accompany him now to their various brother tribes. He was preparing Grimmjow, educating him for a war that might soon appear upon their doorstep.

The first night after this revelation, Grimmjow sought solitude beneath the open heavens. There was no training tonight, but Grimmjow brought Pantera with him anyways, accustomed by now to the sword's weight at his side and comforted by it.

Ichigo shone down upon him as he always had, and Grimmjow closed his eyes and conjured up the face he imagined the god might have. It was a face he had crafted in his mind many years ago as a small child who had been afraid of anything and everything. He had decided long ago that _his_ Ichigo was the man with kind eyes and orange hair, not the skull-faced demon that other legends described.

Through the years, Grimmjow had never faltered in his devotion. He prayed now as often as he had when he was small, even though few things now frightened him as they had before. But tonight, for the first time in many years, Grimmjow felt fear grasp his heart, the sensation familiar like an old friend but unwelcome. He lowered himself to his knees, Pantera laid out before him like an offering, and prayed.

He prayed because although his blood sang for battle, although Pantera wished to cleave flesh and bone, he did not want a war. Grimmjow was savage, but he did not want to see his homeland burn, nor his people slain.

He prayed for protection, that his land would never see the invaders from the west. He prayed for good fortune that his mother and father might live to see old age. And finally, he prayed for strength, that if his first two prayers could not be granted, that he could at least have the power to defend himself and others instead.

These prayers he repeated to the red star over and over, until his voice grew hoarse and his eyelids heavy.

Hours later, when Grimmjow was deep asleep in the open field beneath the stars, the brightest star in Zangetsu blinked and faded into darkness.


	2. At the Altar of a Forgotten God

...

**The Stars Rained Down Like Embers**

**Chapter II: At the Altar of a Forgotten God**

...

Much changed in the year that passed after Grimmjow learned Pantera's name, as the idyllic days of his childhood came to a sudden and unequivocal end.

His mother was not well, gripped by an illness that struck swiftly and made her cough and cough without end. She seemed to waste away day by day, and with no siblings, the duty to care for her fell to Grimmjow.

Life in the village was changing as well. News of the threat from the west had travelled home in the time Grimmjow was away, so that when he and his father returned from negotiations with their brother tribes, everyone in the village knew. The decades of peacetime were soon to come to an end, and their way of life would have to adapt.

Boys in the village would begin their warrior training as early as their ninth summer, younger even than Grimmjow had been when he'd begun his. And Grimmjow, once shunned for his savagery, was now called upon to help teach them.

When diplomacy failed and war proved inevitable, Grimmjow's father left with half their tribe's warriors to join forces with their brothers on the western borders. They would attempt to hold off an invasion, hoping to buy some time for those left behind to prepare. Grimmjow's father forbade him from this journey, telling him that his place, for now, was in their village. His parting words to his son were simple: _Protect your mother. Protect our home._

Grimmjow clutched Pantera, the sword warm in his hands as though ignited by inner fire, and bid his father farewell.

When the last leaves fell from barren trees, news of his father's death in the borderlands arrived from the west, and Grimmjow's mother, who had been clinging to life for a reunion that never came, saw no reason to live on into this frightening new time.

There was no time to grieve. Winter was upon them early that year, despite prayers for mercy from Hyorinmaru. Early chill killed a portion of the harvests, and more than a handful of people succumbed to sickness and hunger.

The stars were displeased, people began to whisper. Hyorinmaru's anger had been roused, or perhaps Senbonzakura had seen his empty altars and did not deign to bring the first bloom of spring. But, most of all, people spoke of Zangetsu.

The great sword was incomplete, for where the red star of Ichigo should have been there was only darkness. Never, for as long as anyone could remember, had a star disappeared from the night before, and the implications of Ichigo's sudden absence birthed fear and despair.

But there were none who felt Ichigo's disappearance more keenly than Grimmjow.

At first, he had not understood. He had stared at the heavens in stunned silence, disbelieving and incredulous. The star to whom Grimmjow had given his unwavering faith and devotion was suddenly and inexplicably…gone_._ Ichigo, and Ichigo alone, had been privy to Grimmjow's every whispered fear and uncertainty, in a way that Grimmjow had shared with no other living soul. His tribe called him _fearless_ because Grimmjow burdened no one with his troubles, because Ichigo knew every one of them and promised him safety so that Grimmjow did not _have _to fear.

He had prayed to the star every night for as long as his memory stretched. He had slept in the open fields beneath its light more times than he could count. He had wept before it, sung its praises, and vowed his devotion.

Grimmjow still gazed upon the broken blade of Zangetsu on occasion, but when he knelt on one knee with his head bowed in the proper deference owed to a star, prayer would not come to him. What was the use in praying to one who was not there? The other stars of Zangetsu were yet unchanged. Shirosaki still shone in brightest white at the tip of the blade, but without its master at the hilt, the sword was without purpose.

Ichigo's absence was not temporary. Grimmjow searched for the star the night before his father departed from their village for the last time, but Ichigo was not there to grant safe travel and protection in battle. The star was not there when his mother drew her last breath, nor when the winter storms threatened to tear his home down and hunger gnawed at his belly.

From the night Ichigo disappeared and all through the winter, Grimmjow's people performed their sacrifices. Goats and sheep and prized steer were bled before his altar. Bread and cheese sorely needed to feed hungry mouths were burned to atone for any perceived slights or insults to the god. But still Ichigo did not return, and the people grew frantic.

What had offended the star so deeply that he would abandon them in this time of greatest need?

When the spring finally arrived to greet the bedraggled, weary survivors of the difficult winter, offerings at Ichigo's altar slowly diminished to a trickle, and then ceased altogether. The great sword had been broken for a year now. The protector had forsaken them.

The faithlessness of his people angered Grimmjow. Tried by hardship though he was, he continued to bring an offering to the shrine every fourth night long after every other person had stopped. Blood from fresh slaughters, for all gods demanded carnal sacrifices. Fruit on the new moons, for Ichigo had a particular fondness for sweets. It was customary to say a short prayer of thanks after burning offerings, but the words always died in Grimmjow's throat when he saw the blank spot in Zangetsu's hilt.

...

"The other stars have not forsaken us, Grimmjow."

It was summer now, the season of greatest abundance. It had followed on the tail of a brief but revitalizing spring, and brought the land to swell with food and drink. The pains of the previous year had not entirely faded from the hearts of the people, but summer was generous and lavished upon them warm days and ample fruit.

Grimmjow did not have many friends, but Shawlong was one of few who tolerated his vulgarities and brash manner. His father too had gone to the borderlands and perished there, but unlike Grimmjow, Shawlong still had a mother and a young wife to care for.

Grimmjow brushed him off, but Shawlong's hand fell heavily on his shoulder. He was looking at the covered basket of fruit in Grimmjow's arms with an air of weary exasperation.

"We ride to war tomorrow. Pray to Kenpachi for strength, or Komamura for power. These are stars our voices may still reach. Do not squander your efforts on one who cannot hear you!"

But Grimmjow shrugged him off. "My business is my own," he growled. He pulled the basket away from Shawlong's disapproving gaze and pushed past him.

With no one but the singing cicadas for company, he took the winding trail to the top of a small hill overlooking much of the village. Grimmjow frowned to see how unkempt the path was, for it was almost overtaken by wild grasses. Up ahead, the twin trees framing the gates had been allowed to grow unpruned, and dead leaves littered the shrine's stone floors, strewn about carelessly by wind and rain.

Grimmjow laid his basket of offerings on the altar before sweeping away the detritus with a broom he kept at the shrine's gates for this purpose. His movements were agitated, his wrists snapping a sharp _flick, flick_ like the tail of an angry cat with every sweep.

With no one to bring offerings, the shrine had been allowed to fall into disrepair. Grimmjow had neither the time nor knowledge to maintain the trees and gardens, but he made sure the floors at least were kept clean. Ichigo deserved that respect, at least.

Finishing this task, he knelt before the altar, and let his hands perform the familiar rituals of sacrifice while his mind drifted elsewhere.

Tomorrow, he and most of the remaining warriors in his tribe were setting out for the borderlands to join their brothers. The western nation had been kept in check thus far, but new reports suggested that they would not be for much longer. In his father's absence, the people now looked to Grimmjow to lead them to war. It was a burden Grimmjow had not asked for, but with the trials of the past year and Ichigo's disappearance, he could not tell them no.

The other warriors were enjoying their last night at home with loved ones, but Grimmjow had no family left to see him off in the morning.

His heart was heavy as he uncovered the basket and laid it all out upon the altar. There was a fragrant cake made of honey and milk, peaches as soft as baby skin and apples the color of a young girl's blush, succulent grapes and sweet pears and an abundance of strawberries, for Ichigo was said to favor these most of all.

It was a splendid array, and perhaps the grandest that Grimmjow had prepared for his favored god. It seemed fitting to offer as much on his last night in the village, for it was uncertain whether Grimmjow would return here again.

One by one, Grimmjow washed the fruits and dabbed them with oil. Half of them he placed upon the burning tray to be consumed by the fire. The other half and the cake were left on the altar to be scavenged by passing animals, for it pleased the god to see his supplicants give to lesser souls.

When it was all done, the man sat at the feet of the altar, watching the fruit blacken and peel in the embrace of dancing flames. Thick black smoke billowed and curled up and up, reaching for the stars themselves. If Ichigo had truly abandoned his people, never again to return to his place in the sky, then Grimmjow would at least give thanks for the twenty years of protection the god had given him.

His boyhood was behind him. The growing pains of adolescence had subsided, leaving in their wake a handsome young man of twenty-one who moved with the grace of a wildcat and fought with the ferocity of one too. His father had done his duty and taught him all he could. His mother had nurtured him and given him warmth. He had been allowed to grow in a time of peace and prosperity, and for that, Grimmjow should be grateful.

Why, then, did he feel so abandoned?

Grimmjow rested his back to the altar and his eyes fell by habit to the constellation of Zangetsu. Though he was by now accustomed to it, Ichigo's absence struck a dull ache in his heart. Grimmjow wondered if he should pray. He had not in almost a year.

He wondered who would tend to the shrine after he left tomorrow. No one, probably. The altar would be empty but for dry leaves, and weeds would overgrow the garden. The image of the shrine of his most beloved star falling to ruin moved Grimmjow to speak, at long last.

It was not quite a prayer, for he was not in the proper kneeling form with his head bowed, but rather, sitting with his back propped against the altar and arm resting on one knee. The gods did not take notice of men who spoke at them so casually, but no matter, Grimmjow thought. Perhaps Shawlong was right, and he was wasting his breath.

"I leave for war tomorrow, Ichigo," he said to the empty night. "I do not know what happened to you, but wherever you are, you better be watching me. Pantera and I, we shall grind them all to dust. I want you to see it."

A wicked grin curled his lips. Despite everything—the fear for his nation, his people, and their way of life—despite all he had been taught to fear about war, Grimmjow felt a terrifying, hungry thrill of elation for battle. Touched by Kenpachi, his elders said of him. He would show them just how right they were.

"I do not know if you will get visitors here after tonight," Grimmjow admitted. "But if there are other villages where I go, I will visit their shrines to you."

The night grew late, and down below at the foot of the hill, Grimmjow watched the lights flicker out one by one as people prepared for sleep.

There was little point in returning to his house. There was no one waiting for him there, and the night was warm enough. Grimmjow untied Pantera from his side so that he could sleep more comfortably, and lay down on his back with his arms folded beneath his head. The sword rested against his arm, and it was warm as though it had lain beneath the midday sun for many hours. Grimmjow let himself be comforted by Pantera's familiar weight and heat, as he had once been comforted by the sight of the red star.

As his breaths slowed and evened out, the sacrificial fire on the altar grew smaller and smaller until finally it too dimmed to embers. The summer cicadas droned on, like the earthly voice of stars that twinkled silently above. Not long ago, a warm summer night like this one would have been an ideal occasion to celebrate Ichigo.

But tonight, his shrine was empty. There were no processions, no priests, no worshipping crowds.

There was only Grimmjow. Just a man at the altar of a forgotten god.


	3. The Ryoka

…

**The Stars Rained Down Like Embers**

**Chapter III: The Ryoka**

…

Two years later, the western invaders broke through his nation's borders.

Like the swell of a great wave, they crashed down upon the most inland village first and engulfed it in a tide of fire and blood. Their cruelty knew no bounds—not a single woman, child, or elder was left alive save those spared to spread the message: the invaders would not stop. What they had done to this first village was but a taste of their intentions for the rest of the coastal nation.

Grimmjow's company arrived mere hours too late to find what the invaders had left behind. That night, he sat inside his tent listening to the mournful wails of the men in his ranks who lost everything today—those who had found the bodies of loved ones in the ashes and those who were still searching—and for the first time in three years, thanked the gods that he had no one left to lose.

The war escalated. After breaching the borders, the westerners spread through the countryside ravenous and unchecked like an infection. For the first time in Grimmjow's lifetime, foreign men claimed the soil of his motherland, and the true horrors of war played out before his eyes.

Villages were plundered and sacked, the people slain in the streets or barricaded in their own homes and burned alive. Their shrines were toppled with blasphemous disregard, their crops set ablaze and livestock turned loose for the wolves. All was left to ruin, and in this the enemy's message was clear: there would be no negotiations, no bargaining, no mercy. They had come to conquer.

There were men whose minds splintered under duress of war, but others, like Grimmjow, grew hardened and learned to see such sights through a stranger's eyes.

Confrontations with the enemy were brief and bloody, but it was in these battles, far from his home village and everything familiar to him, that Grimmjow came unleased. The savage ferocity that had set him apart in the training fields of his youth now drew the attention of both comrades and enemy warriors alike. Here, there was no one to rebuke or frown upon his bloodlust, and now when men whispered that he carried the madness of Kenpachi, they said it with fearful reverence.

When Grimmjow fought, he forgot pain and fear and all manner of restraints. When he held Pantera, the blade warm and heavy in his hands as though possessed by a living soul, it was as if Ichigo himself was at his back, holding his fears at bay. In these moments, he imagined the face of his beloved god by his side, his hands clasped over Grimmjow's as one upon Pantera's hilt as they guided the blade to its purpose.

There were few men who could stand before him in battle for long before fleeing from his madness or falling to his sword, and his reputation spread through the land until every tongue knew his name: Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez, _la Pantera_, for by some odd happenstance, the man had become synonymous with his sword.

But one man alone, no matter how skilled, could not stop an entire army. The enemy was far greater in number, their ranks seemingly endless as they wore down Grimmjow's people by attrition alone.

One year wore by, and then another. By the third, Grimmjow was given a regimen of three hundred to command as he pleased, and he led them with the same ferocity by which he fought.

The war seemed never-ending. Some days were more trying than others. There were times when even Grimmjow felt weariness so deep his very bones ached for rest, when his men were beaten and hungry and wept for a warm hearth or the loving embrace of a woman or child.

Today was one of these days.

The aftermath of battle was always a solemn affair. The living scoured the battlefield for any wounded who might still be salvaged. The dead were accounted for, and shallow graves prepared for their bodies. Vigils for those fallen in battle were held through the night and into the next morning. Grimmjow oversaw these duties and more, so that when he was finally allowed to rest, he could barely stand on his own two feet.

He retired early. Without even taking his evening meal, he retreated into his tent with strict orders that he not be disturbed. After stripping down to a simple sleep garment, he wiped himself down with a wet rag and collapsed facefirst onto his sleeping mat.

It seemed barely an hour later that he was being roused again.

"Captain Jaegerjaquez…"

The young soldier sent to wake him sounded more than a little reluctant to be here. He carried a small lantern, which he brought closer to the captain's face as he hesitated before raising his hand to nudge the man's shoulder. "Captain Jaegerjaquez, we need your—"

His words died with a gasp as Grimmjow's fingers snapped around his wrist in an iron grip and he found himself inches from the man's scowling face.

"Did I not order to be left alone?" Grimmjow's voice was a rumbling growl. He sat up, still holding the young warrior's arm with crushing force, and reached for Pantera.

"Yes you did, Captain, but—"

"Was I _unclear_?"

The soldier shook his head fiercely, wide eyes watching how Grimmjow grasped the scabbard near the hilt and unsheathed it an inch with his thumb. "No, Captain, it is only the matter of—"

"Grimmjow, stop playing with him and come." Shawlong stood at the entrance of Grimmjow's tent, arms folded across his chest and clearly unimpressed. "There is a matter requiring your orders."

"Che." Grimmjow scoffed but released the man, who stumbled back before making a hasty exit. "This better be worth my time, Shawlong."

Outside, the camp was quiet. Most of the warriors, save those on watch duty, were fast asleep. Even the horses were quiet tonight, and Grimmjow's scowl grew deeper as he followed Shawlong to the single fire still lit in the center of the camp.

Three of his warriors stood there with their weapons drawn, and a fourth man whose face Grimmjow could not see was on his knees before them.

"Captain Jaegerjaquez," one of the men approached him. "We found this man just outside the perimeters, watching our camp. He is not one of ours."

Grimmjow gave the captive a once over. Even without seeing his face, he knew that this man was indeed not one of his. His hair fell to mid-back, and its color was that of the fire flickering behind them. He wore only a pair of lightweight linen trousers.

"We have searched him," another warrior spoke. "He carries no weapons, nor anything else. He refuses to speak."

Grimmjow barely heard him. He walked half a circle around the man before coming back to stand before him. "Oi, let me see your face." There was no answer, not even a glance upwards, and Grimmjow's scowl returned. "Did you hear me?"

One of his men fisted a hand roughly in the captive's long hair. "The Captain _asked_ to see your face." A sharp tug forced his head up, and the flickering firelight brought his face to sharp relief.

The man before him was no face he had seen before. Though he could not have been older than twenty, his features had the handsome cut and strength of manhood. His eyes were brown and bore into Grimmjow's with an intensity the captain did not like.

"What is your name?" Grimmjow demanded. "Are you with the western army?"

Again, he received no answer, and Grimmjow felt his patience wearing thin. A dull throb had begun to pound in his head, and he wished nothing more than to lie down for a few more hours. He turned to Shawlong. "I am going back to sleep. Do what you will with him."

Grimmjow turned and headed back towards his tent. He heard Shawlong giving orders, but he did not care to listen. He would tend to things in the morning, when his head was clear and he felt less like one the corpses they had buried today.

…

Grimmjow slept until well after sunrise. He woke ravenously hungry, and joined his men for the midday meal before remembering the orange-haired man from last night.

Shawlong was nowhere in sight, so Grimmjow asked one of the other warriors and was brought to a little patch of land behind the fenced in pen where the horses were kept. The captive was sitting with his back to a tree, bound there with thick rope that encircled his chest many times.

He looked up as Grimmjow approached.

"Are you going to talk today?"

Silence.

Grimmjow frowned, and crouched until he was eye-level with the man. "Tell me who you are with. Are you a scout?"

The man's brown eyes narrowed.

"What were you doing at the perimeter of our camp?" Grimmjow tried again.

Still no answer. Grimmjow looked him up and down. The men from the west had dark hair, in varying shades of deep brown to black, and their skin was sallow like the color of a sick man who had lost too much blood. They were short with broad shoulders and deeply set eyes. This man, with his fair skin and orange hair and lean build, did not look like a westerner. But nor did he look like one of Grimmjow's people. _Ryoka_, Grimmjow thought—outsider.

Where did he come from? Who were his kin? Did he have any relation to the coastal nation or to the nation of the west? The man kept his silence with these and every other question, but not once did his keen gaze leave Grimmjow's face. Though he answered nothing, he was not ignoring Grimmjow, but rather, regarding him with single-minded focus that was unrelenting and strange.

Unsettled by this scrutiny, Grimmjow wrapped his hand around the man's throat and squeezed. The brown eyes went wide and a hoarse gasp came from his throat, the first noise Grimmjow had heard him utter. He grinned.

"So you _do_ have a voice." His fingers tightened slowly until the blood blanched from his knuckles and the sinews of his forearm rippled under the skin. The man's pulse pounded a thunderous rhythm beneath his hand. He shook and writhed, gasping until the fingers around his throat tightened again and silenced that too. Grimmjow felt a familiar thrill rush through his veins, coursing up to his head until it filled his ears with the sound of his own heartbeat.

The _ryoka_'s eyes opened again and met his.

Something in Grimmjow calmed. It was like the moments he imagined Ichigo at his side in battle, but this time, the ghostly face of his patron deity was shaking his head, and the hand he laid upon Grimmjow's urged him to lower Pantera instead.

Grimmjow let go.

He rose to his feet, and without a further look back at the man coughing and gasping for breath behind him, he left. He knew without turning that brown eyes followed him until he was out of sight.

…

By Grimmjow's orders, the _ryoka_ captive was moved to a spot closer to his tent, where he could be easily seen from most corners of the camp.

As Grimmjow went through the day's duties, he found himself frequently glancing in the direction of the tree that shaded his tent. The man was tied there in kneeling position, his head bowed as one in prayer and his long orange hair falling over his shoulders and down his back like a river. It could not have been comfortable, but he stayed there unmoving and uncomplaining like a silent, frozen statue.

The _ryoka_ drew many a passing glance from the warriors in the camp, and once or twice, someone would try to touch or speak to him, but not once did Grimmjow see him react. The prisoner seemed present only in body, oblivious or uncaring to the goings on around him.

At the evening meal, Grimmjow sat with a group of his men around a small fire to share bread, wine, and stories. Edrad was regaling them with a retelling of how he had once laid waste to an entire battalion, but Grimmjow had stopped listening to his comrade's embellished tale some time ago. From where he sat, if he leaned just a touch to the right of Nakeem, he had a straight line of sight to the _ryoka_.

Although the darkness obscured most of his figure, Grimmjow could make out enough to guess he had not moved at all from this morning. Long orange hair caught in the wind and furled outward like a teasing invitation to freedom.

And then, as though sensing the attention upon him, the _ryoka_'s head rose. Grimmjow could not see his face in the dim light, but he knew without question that the man's eyes were on him.

Grimmjow frowned, remembering what had spurred him into strangling the man just that morning. He almost rose to his feet when he noticed a man approaching the captive. It was one of the three who had caught him the night before, and Grimmjow guessed his intentions. Perhaps by Shawlong's orders, he had come to force the _ryoka_ into speaking and determine what threat he posed to their camp.

Their voices did not carry across the distance, but the scene playing out was easy enough to decipher. The interrogator's straight-backed stance and crossed arms conveyed authority and demanded obedience as he pressed for answers.

The _ryoka _would not give them, and as the minutes ticked by, Grimmjow watched as the warrior went rigid, first with frustration, and then with anger. He knew what would happen next, and so he did not flinch when the first blow came like a thunderclap to the _ryoka_'s lower jaw.

Grimmjow did not care to watch the rest. He already knew the beating would yield no answers. He shifted just enough so that Nakeem's bulk blocked the interrogation from view, and finished his meal.

…

It rained that night.

The thunder woke Grimmjow sometime after midnight. He lay half awake in his sleeping mat and listened to the rain slapping against his tent, one hand resting upon Pantera's hilt absently.

The horses would be huddled together for warmth under their makeshift shelters, and Grimmjow did not envy the men posted for watch duty tonight.

But they were not the only ones weathering the storm.

Silent as a cat, Grimmjow slipped from his covers and went to the side of his tent where he lifted a small flap of canvas to peer outside. It was difficult to discern anything, and Grimmjow squinted, looking for the _ryoka_ he knew was still bound kneeling not far from his tent.

In a flash of white lightning that lit everything for a single heartbeat, Grimmjow saw him.

The _ryoka_ was nearly doubled over, from exhaustion or cold Grimmjow could not tell, his hair plastered wetly against his skin and his head bowed under the torrential downpour. Yet even in this humble state, beaten and half naked and muddied, he looked…magnificent. There was something in his suffering that appeared at once noble and tragic.

For that brief moment, Grimmjow was breathless.

And then the moment passed. The land was dark once more, and Grimmjow pulled the canvas flap down more roughly than he intended.

He returned to bed with Pantera at his side, but tonight the sword offered little comfort for it was cold like lifeless steel. Grimmjow did not sleep well.

…

The following morning, the men endured their captain's foul mood. Poorly rested and unhappy besides for reasons no one knew, Grimmjow bore down upon his company like an ill-tempered cat, baring his teeth at the slightest provocation and once even drawing Pantera on a hapless errand boy.

Shawlong, who was by now accustomed to his friend's oft-unpredictable moods, stopped him before he could run the boy through.

"You are a madman today," he told Grimmjow with a frown. "I will take your duties. Go—rest if that is what you need."

It was only his long friendship with the captain that spared him the brunt of the man's temper. Grimmjow stormed back to his tent, but the sight of the _ryoka_ boy gave him pause.

The prisoner was staring at him _still_. His bottom lip was split and bruises covered his bare upper body from his recent beating. His thin trousers were soaked and covered in mud from the storm and he was shivering from cold but still Grimmjow could not enter his tent without those eyes following his every step.

Grimmjow remembered how he'd looked in the lightning last night, the rainwater glistening on the taut muscles of his shoulders and chest, the graceful bow of his head and the wretched, soulful beauty of his humility. Something stirred in his heart.

He had taken the fur pelt from around his own shoulders before he realized what he was doing. Grimmjow held the animal skin in his hands for a moment, its warm weight reminding him how cold Pantera had grown last night, before he knelt and draped it across the _ryoka_'s shoulders.

His knuckles brushed cold, damp skin for a bare instant as he did so, but Grimmjow pulled away quickly and stood. He looked around, but no one had borne witness to what had just happened.

When he looked back down, the _ryoka_'s eyes were softer now, and the corner of his lips curled upwards in a ghostly smile.

Grimmjow was about to enter his tent when he heard the hoarse voice whisper after him.

"_Thank you_."


	4. Pantera on One Knee

…

**The Stars Rained Down Like Embers**

**Chapter IV: Pantera On One Knee**

…

Grimmjow forgot rest. He turned sharply on his heel and gave the _ryoka_ a sharp-toothed grin. "So you have remembered your voice."

"It was kindness that loosened my tongue."

Grimmjow did not know what this meant, but he squatted so that he could look him eye-to-eye. "What land are you from?"

"One whose name you do not know."

And in an instant Grimmjow's sharp, deadly smile morphed into something darker, and his hand curled threateningly around the prisoner's throat again, pressing on the bruises he had left there last time. "Do not play with me, _ryoka_ boy. I am not above beating answers out of you."

He expected fear. He expected the man to flinch or shy from his touch, for Grimmjow had nearly strangled him once already.

But the _ryoka_ only smiled at him, patient like Grimmjow was only a child throwing a tantrum, and answered willingly. "My people call it Seireitei. Outsiders do not know this name." The name was unfamiliar to Grimmjow, and it must have shown on his face for the _ryoka _nodded, unsurprised. "You do not know it."

The _ryoka_ spoke strangely. His speech was halting, stiff as though from disuse and slow like he needed time to remember each word. He spoke formally in the way only the oldest of wisemen spoke, with weight on his _you_'s and a lilting cadence that rose and fell with the rhythm of his words.

It was nothing like the harsh, guttural accent the westerners took when they adopted Grimmjow's native tongue. No, this _ryoka_ had learned their language from a very old member of Grimmjow's people.

"Why are you in these lands?"

"To find and protect someone I once knew."

"Che." Grimmjow scoffed, looking the man over from head to toe and trying to appear wholly unimpressed by what he found. "You will save no one like this. What sort of fool wanders through war land half-clothed and unarmed?"

"A fool in love."

Ridicule was on the tip of Grimmjow's tongue, but the_ ryoka_'s gaze was heavy upon him. He bit back his jeer and carried on.

"You have been in this nation before?"

"Long ago, yes. People knew me."

"Who?"

"No one now. They have forgotten me."

If Grimmjow heard sadness in this, he pretended not to notice. "What is your name?"

This time, the _ryoka_ would not answer. He looked at Grimmjow plainly.

"You will not tell me your name?"

"I cannot."

"Why not?"

"…"

Grimmjow's eyes narrowed dangerously.

"I do not remember it."

Grimmjow did not believe him for an instant, but he had already seen the _ryoka_ withstand a beating without so much as a whimper, and he had determined that the man was no western warrior. If he wished to keep his name to himself, then Grimmjow would allow it.

"We will give you a name then, if you will not tell us yours."

"No." The _ryoka_ shook his head emphatically as if Grimmjow had suggested something blasphemous. "No. I will not accept it."

Raising an eyebrow, Grimmjow snorted in exasperation. "Well then what will you be called? I cannot call you _ryoka_."

"You can."

"_Ryoka_?" Grimmjow asked, one brow arched. "That is no name."

"It is adequate."

The _ryoka_ would not budge, and Grimmjow, whose patience with this strange, difficult man was at its end, did not care enough to argue with him.

…

Later that evening when most of the men were in the training fields, Grimmjow snuck a piece of bread from the camp stores and brought it to the _ryoka_.

After some thought, he untied him as well. The boy had no weapon on him, and he was likely weak from exposure and hunger as well. Grimmjow was more than capable of disabling him if he posed a problem.

The _ryoka_ devoured the food like a wolf, and when he was finished he licked his fingers and looked to Grimmjow for more.

The captain raised an eyebrow. "You are lucky I gave you that much. Our food supply runs low and a _ryoka_ boy does not figure into our rationing."

"I am not a boy."

In their land, a boy was not a man until he could grow a full beard, and the _ryoka_'s chin was smooth with not even the shadow of a beard. Grimmjow smirked, running a hand over his own jaw where the skin was rough because it was evening now and he shaved in the morning. "You look like a boy to me."

The _ryoka_ scowled, but now that he had finished eating, he looked about uncertainly. There were angry red marks on his chest and wrists from being bound to the tree for two days and nights, and his trousers were sodden with mud and rain. He struck a sorry sight.

"What will you do with me?" he asked, and Grimmjow grinned wide in a way that would have sent many of his warriors running.

"I will fight you."

The _ryoka_ stepped forward, his eyes keen and eager. Grimmjow found this strange, having expected protest as most men did when he challenged them.

"We will fight, and if I win I will leave your corpse for the birds to pick."

"And if I win?"

Grimmjow threw his head back and laughed. "You are not from this land so perhaps you do not know, _ryoka_ boy. I am Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez, and I grind my enemies to dust. You will not win."

"_If I win?_" the _ryoka _pressed.

Grimmjow paused, his teeth still bared in a hungry smirk. He had never considered this outcome before, because it had been a very long time since he had lost a fight. "Then you may join us, or go your own way if you wish to continue searching for that woman you love."

The _ryoka_ smiled.

…

Grimmjow saw no honor in fighting a half naked, hungry boy, so the _ryoka_ had one day and night to recover from his ordeal. He was given a fresh set of clothes and permitted to bathe in the river. A spare tent was erected for him to sleep in, and Grimmjow sent food and drink to replenish his strength.

At sundown the next evening, a small crowd had gathered near the field behind the horses' pen. Grimmjow, who had been cleaning Pantera with an oiled cloth while he waited for the _ryoka _boy, looked to Shawlong for an explanation.

"The men heard what you decided for our captive. They came to watch." Shawlong's humorless face suggested that he did not agree with Grimmjow's methods or the impending execution, which was what this fight would certainly end as.

Grimmjow shrugged. He did not care if he fought with an audience or not.

When the _ryoka_ emerged from his tent, he was thrust into the center of the field in front of Grimmjow and given a plain sword. He hefted this in his hands, his brow furrowed critically as he examined the weight and balance of it.

"Oi, _Ryoka_!" Grimmjow brandished Pantera. "Staring at that won't make it a _magic_ blade. Fight me!"

The _ryoka_ lifted his head, his gaze calm for one facing his death, and came at him.

Grimmjow was not ready, but Pantera's instinct was deeply ingrained in him and he blocked the blow by a hair's breadth. The harsh clash of steel on steel rang close to his ears, and Pantera's blade was so hot he could feel its heat warming his face. The _ryoka_'s face was suddenly mere inches from his own, brown eyes locked upon his so unwaveringly that Grimmjow felt naked.

He took a step back, breaking their sword lock and giving himself some distance to regain his footing, but the _ryoka_ did not let him recover for long. He came at Grimmjow again, but this time the captain was better prepared and fended him off well enough to counter with a swing of his own.

Blow after blow, Grimmjow's very bones rattled from the force of his opponent's strikes. The _ryoka _was not just holding his own in this fight; he was forcing Grimmjow onto the defensive.

He had grossly underestimated this _ryoka _boy, the captain realized. He had expected little, and what he got was a man who fought like a demon. Their swords crossed and parted, again and again like the wings of a bird in flight, and Grimmjow felt a tremulous thrill infuse his body and set his blood alight with excitement.

Here was a warrior who could challenge him, who might even make him bleed. Here was someone who might be his _equal_.

"What is your name, _Ryoka_?" he demanded, because a warrior such as this was not someone to be forgotten. The grin stretching his face ear to ear was terrifying and thirsty.

But the orange-haired man only matched his smile and brought his blade down in an arching sweep across Grimmjow's chest. The captain stumbled, his blue eyes gone wide in shock, and in the next instant, he was being braced against the _ryoka_'s shoulder as blood spotted the dirt beneath his feet.

A gentle hand closed over his fingers gripping Pantera's hilt, and orange hair filled the periphery of his vision, and the image of it brought Grimmjow back to countless moments he had imagined the ghost of his god beside him in battle. _Ichigo_, Grimmjow thought in his daze, but when he turned it was only the _ryoka_ boy at his side, a half smile upon his handsome face and a peculiar gleam in his eyes. Grimmjow thought he saw golden irises where there should have been brown.

_You know my name._

Grimmjow was vaguely aware of some commotion around them. His men were shouting and someone tore the _ryoka_ away from him and called for a doctor. He wanted to stop them, to tell them all to go away so he could be left alone but nobody seemed to be listening to his demands.

His head felt light as still he tried to search for orange hair amongst them but other men crowded his vision and the _ryoka_ boy was nowhere to be seen.

…

In the infirmary tent, a field doctor cleaned Grimmjow's wound and stitched it closed. The wound stretched from his collar almost to his navel, but it was not deep enough to pierce anything of great importance. Grimmjow lay there, barely taking stock of the pain, for his thoughts were on the one who had given him this injury.

For the first time in many years, Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez, _la Pantera_, had lost a challenge.

And to a nameless _ryoka_ boy, no less. Grimmjow could have laughed, if he had not been so stunned. In front of his entire camp, he had been matched—no, _beaten_—by a smooth-chinned boy who could not have been a day over twenty.

Grimmjow got up as soon as the doctor tied and cut his sutures, waving the man off when he insisted the captain rest.

"Take me to the _ryoka_ boy," he ordered the first warrior he saw outside.

The _ryoka_ was in the same place as he had been before: tied to the tree outside Grimmjow's tent, on his knees with his head bowed. The sword he had used against Grimmjow was nowhere in sight.

Grimmjow cut the ropes immediately. Somehow, this time seeing the _ryoka _on his knees did not sit well with him.

"_Ryoka _boy, what is your name?"

The orange-haired man looked Grimmjow over, his gaze lingering on the stitches running down the captain's front. "After that, you still think me a boy?"

Grimmjow paused. No, he thought. This was no mere boy. "Che. Fine. Tell me your name."

"You do not know it?"

"By the stars, how would I know _your_ name?"

The _ryoka_ looked crestfallen. "I suppose you will just have to call me _Ryoka_, then."

Grimmjow wanted to smash something.

"You said that if I won, I could stay or leave."

"And?"

"I choose to stay."

This was unexpected. Grimmjow had thought for sure the man would want to leave, after having been kept captive, bound, and starved for most of his time in the camp. "Why?"

The _ryoka_ smiled, and Grimmjow saw that his eyes were brown, not gold. "Because I came here to protect. Travelling with you will help me accomplish this."

Grimmjow did not see how, but nor did he care. The _ryoka_'s choice pleased him, for never before had he been in the company of a man whose strength challenged Pantera. Perhaps he would have another chance to fight him again, he thought, and with this, he offered the man a smile and a hand. "Fine. Let us retrieve your sword."


	5. A Disobedient God

…

**The Stars Rained Down Like Embers**

**Chapter V: A Disobedient God**

…

They could not stay in one place for long, and so once his men were sufficiently rested, Grimmjow gave the order to pack up camp and continue on.

With supplies near depletion, their most pressing priority was to seek shelter with one of the villages nearby who could spare them food and water. There were few villages still secure enough to offer such things, for the war had ravaged this nation's people and taken much from them. Grimmjow's men numbered two hundred and thirty strong and to feed and shelter so many bodies was no small task.

The town of Selae lay two days' journey to the east, and Grimmjow knew of it because his father had taken him there many years ago when the war was still nothing more than a rumbling stormcloud in the distance. It was one of the largest towns in this part of the country, encircled by a high wall which, in peacetime, protected it against the marauding vagabonds who wandered the hills, but which now was the reason it had remained largely untouched by the western invasion.

When they reached Selae, its people and their chief greeted Grimmjow's company with open arms. They threw their gates open wide to welcome the weary warriors, and the chief of this town clasped Grimmjow's shoulder as he would an old friend: "What is ours is yours, my brother. Come and be merry; you have arrived just in time for Raahl!"

Grimmjow, startled, stopped short, and the chief laughed. "You have not been fighting so long that you have forgotten the Starlit Celebration, have you?"

Grimmjow _had _forgotten. He had been a warrior for several years now, constantly on the move and without a home. Temporary tents had replaced a warm hearth; fire-roasted wild game had taken the place of home-cooked meals. He had not taken part in his people's holidays and traditions in all this time.

The chief invited Grimmjow into his own house as his honored guest. His wife welcomed him graciously into their home and his children, neither of whom reached Grimmjow's chest, stole glances at him with wide eyes and whispered in hushed, excited voices.

"They know your name and your deeds," their mother told Grimmjow with a twinkle in her eye. "As do all in this town."

Grimmjow took no notice of the children, but he thanked the chief and his wife and lay down to sleep beneath a roof for the first night in a long time.

…

Raahl, the Starlit Celebration, fell every year halfway between the spring equinox and the summer solstice. It was a week of plentiful food, music, and dance around a single central bonfire that burned all seven days and nights of the festival.

Grimmjow remembered celebrating Raahl as a child in his own village. His mother would cut his hair and his father's hair, and every family doused their household fires to be re-lit with a fresh flame from the village's central bonfire. At night, the hillsides were alight with the bonfires of every village along the coast and far inland, and Grimmjow would look out in wonder at them all, convinced that his people were the mightiest on earth for the bonfires that stretched in every direction as far as the eye could see seemed as numerous as the stars above twinkling in mirrored light.

Raahl honored the stars. The people shared their plentiful harvest so that every god's altar was heaped high with offerings of food, wine, and blood of freshly slain cattle. They gave thanks to the gods, sang their praises and told their stories, and prayed for their continued patronage.

Grimmjow's hair had grown long in the years he had spent wandering the country with no home, and so the first morning after arriving in Selae, he took a knife and cut his own hair to prepare for the festival. When he came back, he saw the chief's wife doing the same for her children, and briefly, his thoughts turned to a simpler time when his mother was still alive to do this for him.

During the festival, men went without shirts and wore only a _shendyt_, a lightweight hunting kilt which wrapped around the waist and ended above the knees. The chief gifted Grimmjow with a light blue _shendyt_ of his own. "To match your hair," the man had explained with a laugh, and Grimmjow grunted his thanks.

Later that day, he found the _ryoka_ watching the bustling activity in the center of the village where men were piling firewood to light the main bonfire that evening. His long orange hair stood out amongst the men who had all cut theirs, and Grimmjow pulled him aside with a frown.

"You must cut your hair," he said, pointing to the offending locks that fell almost to the _ryoka_'s waist. "Raahl begins tonight, so you must cut it before the sun falls."

But the _ryoka_ shook his head and gathered his long hair in one hand as though fearing Grimmjow might slice it off with Pantera himself. "It will not be bad luck for me if I leave it long."

Grimmjow snorted, but he already knew the _ryoka_ was stubborn and really, what did he care if the gods cursed him with bad luck for the next year for not cutting his hair during the festival? "Fine. But find yourself a _shendyt_ before dark, at least."

The _ryoka _ignored him. "Where are you staying?"

"I am staying with the chief."

"Then I will stay with him too."

Grimmjow sputtered. "You were not invited."

"So I will ask for permission," the _ryoka _said reasonably, and he followed Grimmjow back so that he could do just that.

The chief's family, despite Grimmjow's skepticism, welcomed him without question and even gave him a black _shendyt_ to wear for Raahl. The _ryoka_ thanked them graciously, and Grimmjow was left trying to make sense of what had just happened.

"I did not say you were welcome to sleep beside me," he growled, as the _ryoka_ set up his sleeping mat next to Grimmjow's.

"But I want to."

"They don't even know you! What did you bewitch them with?"

"They let _you_ stay here," the _ryoka _pointed out as he pulled his shirt off.

"_I_ am Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez. Everyone knows me. _You_ did not even tell them your name."

The _ryoka_ appeared to consider this momentarily, but then his hands undid the ties holding his trousers up and Grimmjow turned around so fast his head spun. He heard the rustle of fabric falling to the floor behind him.

"What—what _are you doing?_" he roared.

"I am changing into my _shendyt_." There was more rustling, and Grimmjow dared not turn around. "What are _you_ doing?"

Grimmjow's face was hot. Did this man have no sense of dignity? He had seen the _ryoka_ without a shirt before, but men did not go about dropping their trousers in front of other men so easily. Not unless they meant to lie together.

"I am leaving," he said curtly, and he picked up Pantera, eyes glued firmly to the floor, before walking briskly out of the room.

…

Dinner was served beneath the open skies.

The chief of Selae and his wife heaped Grimmjow's plate high with steaming rice and hot bread soaked in a savory sauce cooked with vegetables. Grimmjow craved fish, because he had been raised on fish meat growing up on the coast, but this far inland, fish only came dried and salted from travelling merchants. Still, the food was hot and delicious, and Grimmjow ate his fill with no complaint.

He looked over at the _ryoka_, who had politely declined the hot cooked meal in favor of fruit. Fruit in Selae was plentiful, because the town had several large orchards that grew every type of fruit Grimmjow was familiar with and a few he was not. The _ryoka_ gorged himself on sweet pears and crispy apples seemingly without any regard for cleanliness. Sticky sweet juice ran down his chin and hands, and even the chief's two small children giggled at him for it.

"You eat like an infant," Grimmjow sneered, as the _ryoka_'s cheeks bulged like a field mouse hoarding seeds. With a peach in one hand, an apple in the other and pale golden juice dripping onto his bare chest and _shendyt_, the _ryoka _indeed resembled nothing so much as a gluttinous child. Grimmjow could scarcely believe that _this _was the man he had lost his first fight to in almost ten years.

But the chief's wife only laughed, offering him a plate full of strawberries, and the _ryoka_'s eyes went round like two shiny copper coins. Grimmjow had meant to chastise him further, but something about the way his eyes lit up as he bit into the first strawberry made him swallow his words.

He thought back to the fierce fighter who had beaten him to his knees, how he had knelt bound to a tree for two days and nights suffering stoicly in cold and rain and endured a beating by Grimmjow's men with not even a whimper. This…_boy _stuffing strawberries two and three at a time into his mouth seemed an entirely different man.

Grimmjow did not realize he was staring until the _ryoka_ met his eyes. He remembered how he had thought they glittered gold once, but they were not gold now. Maybe they never had been.

After dinner, the chief pulled Grimmjow aside for a conversation he had not wanted to have in front of his family.

"I regret bringing mention to a grim matter during a festive time," he apologized. "But I must ask what you have seen of the enemy."

The warrior frowned, but the chief of Selae was greatly respected in these lands, and Grimmjow knew that his father had often convened with him to discuss diplomacy and war. He could be trusted.

"Our enemies fight like men possessed."

"A strong assessment to come from _la Pantera_, who is said to forget all pain and reason in the bloodlust of battle." But the chief was not denying Grimmjow's judgment. His brow furrowed deeply and his lips drew thin. "You are not the first captain to pass through this village. Others have said the same. They say the western soldiers fight with empty eyes, that they rise after taking even the most grievous wounds, and do not stop fighting until the last breath has left their body."

Grimmjow nodded; he had seen this for himself many times before. The first time he had looked directly into the eyes of an enemy warrior in battle, he had been taken aback by the blank coldness in them. He had since grown accustomed to it, but still sometimes, after battle, his men would whisper amongst themselves of the unnatural strength that seemed to take hold of their enemy.

"Some men believe our enemy fights with more than mere muscle and steel," the chief went on. "They say the invaders have been blessed with divine strength."

A scornful spat made clear Grimmjow's thought on the matter. "Superstitions have no place among warriors. Such men should don aprons and wash clothes with the womenfolk, if they are prone to idle tongue wagging like women."

"You do not believe our enemies are anything more than what they appear?"

"No." Grimmjow's hand went to Pantera's hilt, and he felt his strength in its warm weight. "Whether they are man or spirit, they bleed red just the same and I will kill them all."

…

The town bonfire was lit at the darkest hour of the night, and Grimmjow stood amongst a crowd of hundreds to observe the ceremonial proceedings surrounding it. As Grimmjow watched the fire crackle and pop, greedily consuming oil-soaked wood piled up nearly as high as a grown man, he was struck by a sudden, powerful wave of longing.

Longing for home, for the familiar dirt roads and the salty ocean smell of his village. For his old life, before the war had come to ravage these lands, when his father had still been alive and his mother in good health. For celebrating Raahl in the comfort of a place and time that had been good and familiar to him.

And perhaps, most of all, for Ichigo. For a time when the great sword of Zangetsu was still whole and Grimmjow could look upon it and know with certainty that Ichigo, the star that he had claimed personally as his patron god, watched over him.

He wondered what had become of the god, wondered what events had transpired in the heavens so far beyond his mortal reach and awareness that could have caused Ichigo to vanish.

Their legends claimed that the gods quarreled amongst themselves at times, and that when such conflicts arose, the very earth shook and reshaped with the might of their battles. Ichigo was amongst the most powerful of their stars, but even he was not invincible. Not against other gods.

It was not the first time Grimmjow had thought this, but the idea always made his gut twist and churn like ocean water caught in a violent storm. He thought back to Ichigo's shrine in his home village, and his final, heavy-hearted gift of offerings the night before he left for war. Had anyone come to visit that shrine after Grimmjow left? It seemed doubtful. The path to the shrine, unkempt when Grimmjow last saw it, must be completely overgrown by now. The altar must be empty, and probably had been in all the years of Grimmjow's absence. The garden was probably overtaken by weeds, and the floor a mess of dead leaves and dirt.

Perhaps it did not matter, if Ichigo was truly gone and no longer able to witness the faithlessness of his people. But Grimmjow felt a great pain in his heart to imagine Ichigo's shrine in such a state.

When the festivities around the bonfire turned to music and dance, Grimmjow slipped away like a shade into the night. He had one destination in mind.

…

Selae's shrines were bigger and grander than the ones in Grimmjow's home village, built with blocks of beautiful white stone and carved by the most talented hands in the coastal nation. Grimmjow encountered no one as he walked the stone path that would take him there, because it was late and everyone still awake was at the bonfire.

Ichigo's shrine was difficult to find. He had expected it to be atop a high hill, as it was in most villages including his own, because shrines were meant to be closer to the heavens and the stars they were built for than the low ground on which mortal men walked. But the trail led Grimmjow to flat ground not far beyond the town outskirts, to a place at the edge of the forest where the grasses grew wild.

As Grimmjow passed beneath the arching gate and followed the low stairs approaching the altar, he saw that this shrine, like the others in Selae, was was more like a small temple, for there were four carved pillars supporting a domed roof, and a graceful fountain in the back bubbling clean water from the river nearby. It did not look unkempt or neglected, and Grimmjow wondered with a start if the people of Selae were more faithful to Ichigo than other villages he had seen in recent years.

As he drew closer, Grimmjow saw that he was not alone here. A hunched figure shuffled slowly from the fountain, holding a bowl filled to the brim with water. His gait was slow but stately, and as Grimmjow watched, the man spilled some water across the altar's surface and began to wipe away the debris with a rag.

Grimmjow recognized the wooden badge and white cloth armband fastened around his upper arm, and what it meant. Only wealthy villages kept priests, and it was not surprising that Selae had one, someone who saw to the preservation and upkeep of all the shrines, and who guided the rituals of sacrifice, festivals, and prayer.

The priest did not look up from his work as Grimmjow approached, but he addressed the warrior with the familiarty of one who had been expecting an old friend.

"This shrine has not had many visitors in recent years. Welcome, Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez."

Grimmjow frowned; nostalgia and sentiment had brought him here, and he had hoped to be alone tonight at Ichigo's shrine.

"Did you come to pray tonight?" the old man asked.

"No." The question annoyed Grimmjow for reasons he did not care to examine. He had not prayed once since Zangetsu had broken. "What use is there?"

The priest shrugged. "For protection. I hear Ichigo grants that."

_Protection. _Bitterness coiled like a snake in Grimmjow's heart as he thought of the past seven years of warfare and ruin. His faith in the protector, once a raging bonfire in his heart, had dimmed to mere embers. His lips curled in derision, and he could not hide the mockery from his voice. "Oh yes, and a fine protector he makes, forsaking our people in our darkest years!"

Unaffected by the outburst, the priest continued to wipe the smooth stone surface of the altar. His calmness infuriated Grimmjow.

"Tell me, priest, for what purpose do you keep this shrine? Ichigo is not in the sky to see your devotion. Your efforts are wasted."

Just as Grimmjow's had been. Just as every offering he had laid at Ichigo's altars, in his home village and every village that he had come across since, had been wasted. Sweet cakes and ripe fruits, heaped upon the altar to rot and feed wild vermin. Grimmjow could not name the madness that prompted him to continue throwing away hard-earned coin into the abyss, but it filled his heart with black bile to see his folly reflected in this priest.

"You believe he has forsaken you."

"He has forsaken _all _of us."

"But you feel as though he has forsaken _you_, above all."

Grimmjow grit his teeth. It pained him how true the priest's words rang. Oh, he knew that he had no claim upon the star. The gods abided by their own wills, and though they could occassionally be swayed by multitudes of worshippers, mortals commanded their attention only by the strength of their combined voices. The gods did not care for their worshippers individually. The idea that Ichigo paid _him_ special mind was only a fanciful imagining of youth, which Grimmjow should have long outgrown and yet had not.

He had no words to counter the priest's shrewd observation.

The old man stopped in his work, and turned his gaze to the heavens. Grimmjow knew without following his gaze that he was looking in Zangetsu's direction.

"The old stories tell of a time when the moon was alone in the night sky," the priest spoke, his voice so low that he might have been speaking to himself. "And the stars took the shape of mortal men but with presence so mighty that we could not help but bow to them."

Grimmjow said nothing, not knowing what direction the old man's musings meant to take.

"And when the great cataclysm struck, our stars fought and bled to preserve us, who they loved. In the aftermath, they saw how their love for us would destroy them, and so it was decided amongst them that never again would they dally in the lives of men—"

"And so they ascended to a place where men could never reach, but from where they could still gaze down upon us and hear our voices," Grimmjow finished for him, impatiently. "Every child knows the story, priest. What are you repeating it to me for?"

"I am simply reminding you, because you, like so many others, have forgotten." With a ghost-like smile, the priest gestured to the sky with an open palm. "That before the stars were up there, they were down here."

The old man was senile, Grimmjow decided, because everyone _knew_ the legends and here he was explaining it to Grimmjow like a—

"So if Ichigo is no longer above, then perhaps he has returned to walk amongst us."

The mockery on his tongue shriveled and died as Grimmjow's mind ground to a halt.

_What?_

The priest returned to his task, either not noticing or not caring how the warrior's jaw had fallen. His wrinkled, work-worn hands scrubbed back and forth on the white stone, and the devotion Grimmjow had just moments ago derided as foolish took on a different meaning.

_If Ichigo is no longer above…_

"What do you mean, priest?" Grimmjow demanded, though there could be no other way to interpret the other's words. His voice rose as he repeated himself. "_What do you mean by that?_"

"I speak only what seems to me the most probable truth. Do you think the stars have forgotten how to don mortal skin?"

Of course Grimmjow did not, but—

"It is forbidden," he cut in swiftly, grappling for cause that the last seven years spent in idle resentment at his once-beloved star had not been in vain. "The stars chose to never again walk this earth. What cause would Ichigo have to go against such law?"

The priest shrugged. "I cannot guess at the motives of a god, Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez."

"The law was written long ago to be obeyed by all stars, on pain of death! Never since has it been broken!"

"Ichigo is not known for his obedience to custom and law."

Grimmjow fell back a step as though struck, out of words and breath but with a hundred thoughts crowding his mind and his chest burdened with emotions he could not name.

Ichigo on earth, in mortal guise. The idea made his heart tremble.

But why? Grimmjow's people did not record their tales in written word, and so it was only through song and legend that they knew the stories of their gods. But no living man had ever seen the stars on earth, nor their fathers before them, nor even those who came before that. It must have been thousands—tens of thousands!—of years since the stars had taken to the sky. Why would the protector choose now to break the heavens' most severe law, to invoke the anger of his fellow gods and invite certain execution by their hands?

For the last seven years, Zangetsu had been broken. Had Ichigo been down here, living amongst mortal men, for all that time? If so, what had he been doing?

There were so many questions, and Grimmjow felt unable to articulate even one.

The priest offered him no more wisdom. He washed the altar and cleaned the incense jars, and shared only the air he breathed with the silent warrior who was his companion. Grimmjow stayed there long after the old man finished his task and left, and when the hunched figure was swallowed up by the dark of night, he sank to his knees before the altar and bowed his head.

_Where are you, Ichigo? What madness drove you here?_

* * *

><p><strong>There is now another accompanying illustration, this one for a scene in chapter 2. This and other art related to this fic are on the-autobot-kuro. tumblr. com(slash)taggedBleach**


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